COSMOS vs POLKADOT: The Battle of Multi-Chain Infrastructures
Digitalassetdb.com
There are a number of startups that plan to provide inter-chain operability, scalability solutions, and improved efficiency on the blockchain. Here is a comparison of 2 projects that show significant promise in solving the foremost problems facing blockchain technology.
| NAME | COSMOS | POLKADOT |
|---|---|---|
| Token | ATOM | DOT |
| Industry | Blockchain Services | Blockchain Services |
| ICO Hard Cap | Raised 4,868 BTC + 246,892 ETH (as at April 6, 2017). | Raised over $359 million (as at October 26, 2017). |
| ICO Price | _____ | varied |
| Number of Partners | _____ | 12 |
| Telegram Followers | 5377 followers | No Telegram Channel |
| Project Start Date | February 2016 | October 2016 |
The Blockchain Interoperability Challenge
The advent of Blockchain technology has opened up a world of possibilities in technology, finance, payment services, business management, transportation and logistics, file sharing and many other sectors. Moving forward, the expectation is that the blockchain will birth many more technological advancements that will revolutionize the way we live, work, and interact.
The technology, however, has some disadvantages that threaten to limit its effectiveness and mass adoption. Energy inefficiency, low scalability and the lack of interoperability amongst blockchains are some of the biggest problems; Cosmos and Polkadot aim to provide solutions to these problems.
Cosmos vs Polkadot: Value Proposition(s)
Cosmos aims to provide a network of decentralized blockchains. The Cosmos Network will be deployed on an architecture that allows blockchains to exchange data and payments between themselves, scale infinitely without compromising on security, and improve on blockchains that are already in existence.
Polkadot, on the other hand, is a heterogeneous multi-chain technology that facilitates the secure (and anonymous) exchange of data and payments between different blockchains. With this technology, Polkadot aims to connect multiple blockchains into a single and completely decentralized internet—they call it “Web3”.
Cosmos vs Polkadot: Competitive Advantage
Both Cosmos and Polkadot aim to connect independent blockchains but while Polkadot is focused on enabling secure transactions and interactions, Cosmos aims to do way more than that.
Cosmos wants to provide users with a decentralized distributed exchange, ability to bridge to other cryptocurrencies, and multi-application integration.
However, the Polkadot ICO raised over $350 million, giving the project a significant advantage over Cosmos.
Cosmos vs Polkadot: Roadmap & Future Outlook
According to the Cosmos website, the Cosmos Network is almost ready and they have completed 90% of the milestones required before the network can be launched officially. The project also exceeded the hard cap they set for their crowdsale and while they have a big enough community, to attain mass adoption, they need more participants than the 1090+ people that donated during their ICO.
The Polkadot project has also completed major milestones and the network is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter of 2019. They have also secured some support and partnership agreements with the likes of ZCash, OmiseGo, Melonport, Grid Singularity, Waves Platform, and many others. Given how much the project raised during ICO and their user-friendly use case, there is a lot of positive attention on this project. Whether or not this translates to mass adoption remains to be seen.
Cosmos vs Polkadot: Strengths & Weaknesses
| POLKADOT | COSMOS | |
|---|---|---|
| Easy-to-use platform with non-complex & minimal functionality. | A developer friendly platform equipped with a Tendermint-based toolkit that makes building DApps easy. | |
| STRENGTHS | Raised $359 million during ICO. | Their roadmap is 90% complete. |
| Polkadot aims to provide developers that want to deploy smart contracts on their platform with Turing-complete parachains | Chains built on Cosmos are interoperable among themselves as well as with external blockchains. | |
| WEAKNESSES | The network won’t be launched till Q3 2019. | Their website does not mention any notable partnerships. |
| Ethereum is already working on a solution to its scalability problem. This may remove a significant part of both project’s target market |
Cosmos vs Polkadot: Conclusion
Cosmos and Polkadot have similar goals (a decentralized network of blockchains that work together) and while this may position them as rivals, both projects have unique propositions that set them apart. Smartly, both of them have decided to put a cap on trading their cryptocurrency tokens, Cosmos Coin (ATOM) and Polkadot Coin (DOT), until their networks are fully launched. This action signals a certain serious-mindedness. Furthermore, by doing so, they are ensuring that the positive performance of their platforms will have a positive effect on the value of their tokens—and by extension, the value of their company.
Given how far along they are on their roadmap, Cosmos is expected to launch sooner than Polkadot (Q3 2019). However, regardless of when both projects make their tokens available for trading, ATOMs and DOTs seem like good options to consider investing in.
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